ned with unextinguished
glory. This spiritual fire has now spread, and expressed itself in acts of
earnest life. Foreign missions have been promoted;(860) an inner or home
mission established for schools, and other religious agency;(861) and an
annual ecclesiastical diet(862) constituted, for promoting co-operation
and ecclesiastical improvement.(863)

These three separate movements of the present age, even when incorrect,
have contributed something to form a perfect theology. In the orthodox
school we see the attempt to return to the Bible, as interpreted by the
Reformation; in the mediation school, as interpreted by the religious
consciousness; in the critical school, as interpreted by historic and
critical methods.

We have now completed the history of the great movement in German
theology, in its two elements, doctrinal and critical. Commencing in the
first period,--in doctrine, with the disbelief of positive religion,
replacing dogma by ethics; and in criticism, supplying a rationalistic
interpretation: in the second, it was improved on the doctrinal side by
the separation of religion and ethics; and on the critical by a spiritual
acknowledgment of the literary characteristics and psychological
peculiarities of revelation: in the third, by a total reconstruction of
both inquiries, in a more historic and orthodox spirit; and by the
creation of a traditionalist position in reference to each. The solution
of the problem how to reconcile faith and reason, was attempted in the
first by obliterating faith; in the second by uniting them; in the third
by separating them. The whole movement stands remarkable, not only as
being the most singular instance in history, where the action of free
thought can be watched in its intellectual stages, disconnected in a great
degree from emotional causes, and where the effort was exercised by the
friends of religion, not by foes; but also in the circumstance that though
referable to the influence of similar intellectual causes as former epochs
of free thought, it is characterised by wholly different forms of them.

We have found, on nearer inspection, as might be anticipated in any great
movement of mind, that instead of being without purpose, and a mere heap
of ruins, there was a plan and method in it. It is a history which offers
much cause for sorrow and much for joy. Though, as has been before
remarked, a period of harrowing doubt in the life of an individual or a
nation is a mela